NEW YORK (REUTERS) — A New York City committee Tuesday chose two possible designs to replace the World Trade Center; both call for the city to construct the world’s tallest building on the site of the twin towers destroyed in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
A list of proposals to rebuild the 16-acre area near Manhattan’s southern tip has narrowed from hundreds of ideas submitted last year. Both finalists, named by development officials Tuesday from nine contending designs, would top Malaysia’s 1,483-foot Petronas Towers.
The Lower Manhattan Development Corp. and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey made the announcement after gauging public support for the designs and considering a host of factors including cost, practicality and aesthetics.
The landmark twin towers were destroyed in the Sept. 11 hijack plane attacks, which killed about 2,800 people. The United States blames Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda network for the attacks.
One of the finalist designs is the work of a New York team led by architects Rafael Vinoly and Frederic Schwartz, who envision airy latticework structures reminiscent of the 110-story twin towers and the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The pair of buildings, 1,665 feet tall, would include educational and cultural facilities.
“We never expected to be blessed with the responsibility of representing the public and fulfilling the expectations not just of this city, but of the entire world,” Vinoly told reporters.
The other proposal comes from Berlin, Germany-based Daniel Libeskind, who plans a tower of 1,776 feet — symbolizing the year of American independence — topped with a garden-filled spire. Libeskind’s plans would also use the foundation walls that survived the original towers’ collapse.
Libeskind, who designed the Jewish Museum in Berlin, said his plan tried to capture “the essence of what happened” at the twin towers, the tallest buildings in the world for a brief time in the 1970s, and “show the world that life is victorious and that life is good.”
The Lower Manhattan Development Corp., the group responsible for overseeing the rebirth of downtown Manhattan, said a single concept would be chosen by the end of the month.
Even then, officials said, the winning plan, which would include a memorial to victims of the attacks, may be refined from its current form.
“Neither plan is set in stone,” said Roland Betts, board member of the development group. “It’s part of a puzzle of enormous complexity.”
Questions have risen about both designs.
Libeskind must figure out how to reinforce a wall of the structure, which Betts said would face enormous stress caused by the Hudson River. Vinoly’s designs raise issues related to cost and height, he said.
The development group in December had picked seven groups, including some of the most prominent architectural firms in the world, to present models for replacing the World Trade Center after earlier plans were sharply criticized for being dull and uninspiring.
Deciding what to build at the site has stirred an emotional debate in New York City, with architects forced to devise plans that are both innovative and sensitive to the feelings of relatives of those killed.
